"Samwise Gamgee and the Ring"
by Flame Tigress
Summary: What if Frodo had been killed in Cirith Ungol, and the Ring, the responsibility, and the story had become Sam's? *Part Two*: At a ceremony honoring Frodo, the fallen Ring-bearer, friends, acquaintances, and strangers reflect on his life and death.
1. "Samwise Gamgee and the Ring"

****

Disclaimer: I'm very sorry, Professor Tolkien…I know you'd commit suicide (if you weren't already dead) if you could see what people are doing to the characters that belong to you. *evil grin*

****

Author's Note: Well, I don't really know what inspired this lovely thing (read "lovely" with a measure of sarcasm…there you go). I wanted to kill someone. No, no, I wasn't mad, and I don't _dislike _Frodo. In fact, I like him very much, and that is why I chose to kill him. I wanted to kill him because I like killing people. I think you're taking it the wrong way again. All right, I shall phrase it thus: I like writing deaths. (See my Harry Potter fic "The Dark Lord's Armageddon," and you shall see that I do indeed like killing people.) They provide me with great opportunity for describing pain, sorrow, and a great many other delightful emotions that make me cry when I'm listening to "The Breaking of the Fellowship" on the _Lord of the Rings_ soundtrack, especially if they happen to people I like. Also, I had been reading stories involving violence, pain, and angst, and I quite enjoyed them because they can be very well-written and evocative. So here I am writing about people kicking the bucket…it's that phrase again; I just love using it. However, death scenes can be very cliché and there are certain formulas used in all tear-jerkers that become tedious, and I am afraid that my own death scenes in this fic are very cliché indeed. But they're touching…sort of. Think of Elijah Wood's abnormally large, abnormally blue eyes, and anything is touching.

The other thing that inspired this fic is my dad. He read the _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy a long time ago, and he only remembered one thing from _The Return of the King: _Frodo loses a finger. My dad has a weak stomach, so that would stand out in his mind, now wouldn't it? The thing is that he didn't remember that Gollum bit it off (I'm feeling a little ill just thinking about that…) – he thought Frodo cut it off himself because there was no other way to get rid of the Ring. Well, that's attributing a little more courage to Frodo than he was given in the book, but I thought it was sort of romantic.

All right, the story's crap, and the schizophrenic hobbit (?!?) may be a little disturbing, but Sam did talk to himself and killing people _is_ fun. (evil laugh)

It picks up in Cirith Ungol after Sam sings his defiant little song and hears someone answering.

****

"Samwise Gamgee and the Ring"

Upon hearing the faint answering call to his song, Sam's heart began to race with hope beyond hope. It might have been Frodo, he thought; he prayed it was Frodo, still alive, still able to recognize his servant's voice. Sam rushed in the direction of the voice, climbing up ever more stairs, pushing aside his own fears of the darkness and foes lurking in the dreadful tower. A ladder rose to an opening in the ceiling, through which the red light of some sort of lamp streamed – a room. It seemed that no one was in there, for no more sound emerged. But Sam searched anyway, for even if his master was indeed dead, Sam had to find his body at least.

When Sam's head emerged into the red glare of the lamp that illuminated the small chamber, his frantic searching yielded the sight of a lonely figure lying prone in the corner. It was Frodo.

He was lying naked on a pile of filthy rags, as if he were a useless item put aside there until its careless owner figured out where to put it, or got around to throwing it away. With a cry Sam ran to him, tears starting in his eyes. Frodo barely twitched and moaned unintelligibly when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Mr. Frodo!" Sam cried, and knelt beside his master. Frodo did not turn. He only whispered, "Sam."

"I am so sorry, Mr. Frodo! I did not mean to leave you – I thought you were dead. Please don't be angry with me," Sam said miserably.

"It's not that, Sam," Frodo breathed weakly, his pain-laden voice barely audible. "I am broken. They took everything they wanted, and then they questioned me…and then…they stopped asking questions after a while. They like to break things just for the fun of hearing them crack."

Sam saw then in the red light that his master's body was bent and twisted and paralyzed; his chest was lined with fiery red cuts. Sam wept inconsolably and moaned, "I am so sorry! I am sorry, I am sorry! This is all my fault…"

"Oh, Sam. It is a miracle that you are here. I did not want to be alone at the end. For it is the end. And not only for me. The others will perish as well…" He gasped desperately for breath, faintly crying out as his crushed chest tried to take in air. "When Sauron has the Ring, the free peoples of Middle-earth will all be enslaved. Minas Tirith will fall, and Rivendell…and Lórien." He sighed, though he seemed beyond weeping. "Boromir was right…the Ring was too great a burden to place upon me. And I did beg for death before the end…I tried not to give them the satisfaction, but…all I could do was scream for it all to end…"

Through his tears, Sam interjected, "No! No, I have the Ring! And we will go to the top of Mount Doom and cast it in and be done with this nightmare."

Hope seemed to lift Frodo's dying spirits as he said, "Sam, you are a marvel. But for you, all truly would be lost." He twitched once more, a motivation stirring within him. "Let me see it one more time, the cause of all my suffering. My bane, like Isildur's."

Inexplicably reluctant, Sam drew it from where it hung on its chain beneath his shirt. He rose, and then knelt once more by his master's head, holding the Ring out. Frodo closed his suffering blue eyes, and whispered hoarsely, "It taunts me – the Eye, the wheel of fire. I do not wish to hunger for the Ring anymore."

Sam began to weep once more, seeing his master's pain, and reached out to touch Frodo's hand. All of the fingers had been broken in his torment. Frodo cried out at Sam's touch, gentle as it was.

"Oh, Mr. Frodo. I don't know what to do," Sam said, his voice trembling.

"Go on to Mount Doom. Destroy the Ring. My part as Ring-bearer is over. I may grant the Ring to anyone I choose: I would have given it to Gandalf, or to the Lady, if they had not refused it; I give it now to you. Though my heart aches to burden you with the suffering that the role of Ring-bearer entails, you are the last one now who may fulfill the Quest." His voice cracked and faded, and only his shallow, labored breathing remained to fill the silence.

"So this is my part to play," Sam said, his voice, though still trembling with tears, suddenly resolute; "my task before the end, that I foresaw back in the Shire."

"So it is, Sam," Frodo breathed hoarsely. "And the tales they tell years from now will turn from being my story to yours; it will not be the legend of 'Frodo and the Ring of Doom,' it will be 'Samwise Gamgee and the Ring.'" He laughed as well as he could, then closed his eyes and grimaced in the agony of the mere act of laughter. "Perhaps 'dad's' voice will break and he will wipe away a tear at this part of the book, and his children will tell him to stop getting so emotional and go on with the tale."

"I would not," Sam said, tears starting again; "I would not tell Dad to close the book in the dark places, nor to stop weeping. And I will destroy the Ring, and the others – Strider and Legolas and Gimli and Faramir, and Merry and Pippin – they will not perish, and Minas Tirith and Rivendell and Lórien will not fall. It _isn't_ the end of everything, and it hasn't all been in vain."

A ghost of a smile flitted across Frodo's lips, and his face relaxed, his eyes gazing past Sam and into the lands of the West somewhere, perhaps at the Brandywine River sparkling in the sunlight, or the Party Tree in the clearing where hobbit children played, laughing cheerily; or perhaps at the homely garden of Bag End, where the grass was _usually_ neatly trimmed under the windowsill. Tears flowing freely down his face, Sam reached out with a trembling hand and his rough fingers brought his master's eyelids down over their empty, clear blue eyes in final sleep. Once more, Sam knew he could not give Frodo a glorious burial, for he had to carry on with the Quest, so he rose and unwillingly left the empty shell that was once his master to its fate. The tower of Cirith Ungol was empty of living orcs, so Sam descended the stairs of the tower without assailment, and picked his way among the corpses of the goblins to strive silently with the Silent Watchers of the tower and wend his way through the darkness of Mordor to Mount Doom, and whatever may follow from there.

~~~~~~~~~

"I understand perfectly well now how you felt, Mr. Frodo," Sam muttered, seemingly to empty air, as he trudged along on the barren, ashen waste of Gorgoroth, nearing Mount Doom.

"It looks small, but it's no light burden," Frodo responded inside Sam's head. "I don't begrudge you a collapse every once in a while; I was no better about it."

The week-and-a-half-long hike from Cirith Ungol to the foot of Mount Doom had been torment for Sam. There was little water in all of the parched land of Mordor, and no clean water whatsoever. He had, however, carried enough _lembas_ to sustain him, with supplement from Faramir's provision, and made it to where he was by drinking water sparingly. A few mouthfuls still remained in his water bottle, and he allowed himself half of one to prepare for the torturous climb up the mountain.

"Though it'd be nice if I knew where I'm going," Sam commented ironically to Frodo. "Where are these 'Cracks of Doom,' anyway?"

"Do you know, I can't help you there. I suppose you'll find one sooner or later," Frodo encouraged Sam from within his mind.

So Sam began climbing among the sharp, protruding rocks that studded the mountainside. Crawling, more like. After ten minutes, he flopped down on his back and moaned, "It's no good, Mr. Frodo. I really can't go on…at least for right now."

"You really have it worse than I did – you don't have yourself to help you along and make you get up when you fall."

"_You_ make me get up – well, thinking of you does. I won't give up because I'm doing this for you," Sam stated. As he said this, another surge of will rushed through him, and he raised himself from the ground and started walking on. He wasn't walking for long before he started crawling again, seeking for handholds among the sharp jutting rocks and rubble that littered the mountainside. He lost track of time and just toiled on steadily, a sluggish but determined engine, detached from the pain in his tired body. When he came back to himself and looked down to the plain from whence he had come, he realized that he was more than halfway up the base. But the cone of the mountain still loomed far above him. He may have gotten this far, but it would be no use if he couldn't find a way to the Cracks of Doom, which may very well be near the top. However, his efforts were rewarded when he spotted a path.

"Why, it's almost as if it were put there a-purpose!" he thought.

"For your use?" Frodo asked him, the tone of his voice amused.

"Well, why not? If it wasn't there, I'd have to say I was beaten in the end. Now the trick is getting from here to the road."

"Think of how much easier a smooth way will be," Frodo prompted, his voice kindly, as Sam remembered back in the Shire; "then it will not be so difficult to go on as you have done for a little ways more."

So at last Sam was able to collapse on the trail and, unmoving, feel the aches that covered his entire frame. "Ow," he said simply. His mouth and throat were too parched to elaborate.

"Look to the East!" Frodo said, or Sam thought it was Frodo; perhaps it was some other voice echoing in his febrile mind. So Sam looked, and saw the dark, menacing towers and pinnacles of the Barad-dûr, abode of Sauron himself, looming on the rise. The red, glowing eye of flame stared, burning its malice, toward some other point, but the mere sight struck cold into Sam's heart. Quailing, his hand automatically groped for the Ring, hanging on its chain about his neck.

"It wants me to put it on, Mr. Frodo," he whispered, terror gripping him. "It wants me to be found."

"I know," said Frodo sympathetically; "it did the same to me, over and over. You must keep your awareness of yourself, Sam, and always tell yourself that you mustn't put it on."

"Easy enough for you to say," Sam was tempted to mutter mutinously. His left hand batted his right away from the Ring and held it down firmly. "Right then, Samwise Gamgee; no more looking east for you. Where to now, Mr. Frodo?" he asked the empty air.

"Follow the path, I suppose," said the benevolent voice of good sense in his head. "It can't take you backwards from where you've come."

"That's so, Mr. Frodo," Sam responded gratefully, and set off again, exhausted but walking on his own two feet.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sammath Naur: the Chambers of Fire, Sauron's forge. The path led right to it, so Sam really couldn't miss it.

And so, like Isildur centuries before him, Sam stood on the edge of Doom with the Ring in his hand, ready to throw it into the flame as Elrond commanded. Sam had thought, though, that it should be relatively easy to chuck the thing in the volcano and have done with it. Not so, for the Ring did not want to be chucked, and it had a commanding mind of its own.

In one part of Sam's wearied mind, it was clearer than anything had ever seemed clear before that he should destroy the Ring, for in doing so, he would bring an end to Sauron's evil in Middle-earth. More importantly, Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel – the wisest people Sam had ever known, and the people to whose wisdom he would trust everything he held dear – had said that throwing it in the fires of Mount Doom was the only way to do what was right and necessary, and their reasons made no difference to a humble hobbit.

Yet in the part of Sam's mind where the slowly-consuming, corrupt influence of the Ring held sway, it was clearer than anything that he should keep the Ring. "You earned it," the voice of Temptation, and the voice of the little gold circle lying with its chain limp in his palm, whispered seductively. "Your back was bent, your heart broken, your soul bruised and battered and torn asunder for this, not theirs."

"To destroy it did I suffer, and destroy it I will," Sam argued. "It isn't mine." But his hand would not move to throw the Ring.

"All you did for the sake of the Ring, and it is that easy to get rid of it forever? You could use it to defeat darkness – you, Samwise, could have the power of the One. Would you be content to throw it away and fade again into obscurity, into anonymity? The forces of evil would still roam Middle-earth even after one of their weapons was destroyed; would it not be more effective to use their power against them?"

"No; Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel didn't think so," Sam told this voice. He twirled the Ring's chain around his finger, wondering if he ought to toss it now.

The 'power' tack obviously wasn't working, so the Ring's devious maneuverings took another route. "What about Frodo?"

Sam's hand stopped, as it seemed that his heart stopped, for a moment. Those who had died – Gandalf first, then Boromir, and…Frodo. Who still caused Sam's soul the most pain.

The kindly, rational part of Sam's head that had taken on Frodo's persona said sternly to Temptation, "I died trying to destroy the Ring." Sam flinched, as he thought the word: died. "That is what I lived for, and it is what I died for." This seemed enough reason for Sam to finally stop hesitating and finish the quest he and Frodo had started.

Yet the Ring had one more card to play, one more weakness in the wielder of its fate to exploit. "It is all you have left of Frodo."

Sam looked down at the Ring in his hand. He saw it in his mind's eye hanging on the chain around his master's neck, always with him, always as much a part of him as his dark, curly hair or his vivid blue eyes.

"If you destroy it, you destroy any memento of him."

Reason faltered and failed in Sam's mind. The wise, benevolent face of Gandalf faded; Galadriel's ageless beauty and countless years of knowledge faded. All he could see was Frodo, putting the Ring in his vest pocket; Frodo, walking hunched and weary with the Ring a shining golden pendant on his breast; Frodo, his eyes pain-filled as he said, "I may grant the Ring to anyone I choose…I give it now to you."

"If you keep it, you forever keep a part of him."

Reason fled utterly. Ruled by emotion and impulse, Sam's left hand slipped the Ring around the finger of his right. In the swirling gray mists of the wraith world, Sam saw Frodo standing beside him again. "I can't do what I set out to do," he said. "I can't lose everything I have of you, Mr. Frodo."

The vision vanished, though, as the Eye of Sauron was drawn like lightning to the wearer of the Ring. He had found it at last, after millennia of searching. He could be reunited at last with the source of his power. The Ring, triumphant to be discovered at last by its rightful Master, no longer needed to speak with the voice of sweet temptation. Sam's horrified eyes were filled with sights of destructive, pillaging, ravaging monsters of Orcs, leering viciously at him. Hobbits screamed as the Shire burned, its fields and houses reduced to ashes, its trees uprooted, its inhabitants enslaved and cruelly driven.

In his heart, Sam suddenly knew he had failed. He had to salvage what was left of this quest, take off the Ring and destroy it. "I can't take it off, Mr. Frodo," he whispered fearfully, his hand trying desperately to get to the finger that bore the One. "It won't let me take it off."

Then he knew what he must do, as surely as if Frodo had spoken to him and told him. He was no longer important in the grand scheme of things; all the world rested on this – throwing the Ring into the Cracks of Doom.

"You aren't all I have left of Mr. Frodo!" Sam cried defiantly to the Ring, drawing Sting clumsily from its sheath with his left hand. He held the Elven blade to his right hand, the metal glowing not blue, but the purest of whites, its Elvish inscription blazing silver, illegible to Sam but the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He shut his eyes, thinking of the Shire, of all the children of the world, of the beauty and tranquility of Rivendell and Lothlórien, of Frodo dying for the quest, and trying desperately not to think of his finger. The Ring a wheel of fire burning around it, he moved Sting like a flash of lightning and severed the thing of evil from him, if he could not just take it off.

Sam cried out in pain more blinding than any agony he had ever felt, but the deed was done, and the flame-bright ring and bloodied finger fell into the roaring fires of the heart of Orodruin. Just as he saw it fall, Sam heard a wailing, mournful, piteous, terribly broken cry echoing: "My Preciousss! It's lossst forever!"

Darkness flooded Sam's consciousness as the pain in his hand shot through him, and he knew no more. For a little while.

When he returned to wakefulness, Sam's hand hurt immensely, but the mountain was belching fire, so the thought that he probably ought to get off the ledge of the Crack of Doom waved its flag in the haziness of his pain-dazed mind. He stumbled out of the stifling air in the forging chamber and back onto the path on the side of the mountain, where he collapsed, the stump of his finger throbbing.

"Well, that's that done, Mr. Frodo," he gasped. "That's the end. How do you like that?"

"Besides your hand, I like it very well," Frodo said gently. "What I set out to do has been accomplished, and now we can all have a very well-deserved rest."

"Rest," Sam said blissfully. "That sounds good." He lay sprawled on his back on the ground. "I'd like a very long rest."

"No, Sam! Not too long a rest, not yet. You have something to live for, don't you?"

"Not that I can think of off the top of my head, Mr. Frodo."

"The Fellowship! Merry and Pippin! Strider and the others! They may still live; are they not something to live for?"

Sam considered this, staring up at the ash-darkened Mordor sky. "You will not be with us. The heart of our Fellowship, the reason it existed – that'll be gone."

"What about Rose? Rosie Cotton?" Frodo's voice persisted.

Sam paused to consider again. "I don't rightly remember Rosie. That is to say, I remember she existed, but I don't remember anything about her…how she looked, how she danced, how she laughed. All I can remember is the Ring, and how heavy it was, and the darkness of Mordor."

"Oh, Sam…" the voice of Frodo sighed sorrowfully.

"And you. I can remember you. You're not really here. It's just a voice in my head. It was nice while it talked to me, though. Kept me going."

"That's not true, Sam," Frodo's voice said softly. It was more distinct than the memory that had spoken before; Sam realized that his imagined Frodo's voice had begun to sound like his own. This voice sounded real. "I'm here."

"Then I'm glad you're here with me. Here at the end of all things, Mr. Frodo."

"I'm glad I'm here, too."

Sam closed his eyes peacefully and smiled, one memory, from before being weighted with the Ring, remaining a beacon in his mind: sleeping, for once able to find rest, sitting with his back against a rock, with Frodo's head cradled in his lap. Sam remembered the feverish heat of his master's forehead under his protective hand, and he remembered the feeling of shielding his best friend from his pain and at the same time being shielded himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam was not aware when Gwaihir the eagle swooped from the sky, with Gandalf riding on his back, and rescued him from the slopes of Mount Doom. Still he slept, unconscious in his bed in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith, when King Elessar Telcontar was crowned, the sovereign of both Gondor and Arnor, uniting Middle-earth and bringing order and peace to the land. He did not hear the words of Merry and Pippin when they spoke to him at his bedside, telling him of the end of the War of the Ring, the glorious crowning of Strider (of all people), the even more glorious weddings of Strider to Arwen Undómiel and Lord Faramir to Lady Éowyn. In his coma-like sleep, Sam did not know of the ceremony honoring Frodo the Ring-bearer; did not hear the lament Galadriel herself sang for him; did not see his master's torn and stained Lothlórien cloak, shining mithril mail-coat, and Elven-made sword interred in the earth in place of his body. But Pippin fancied that Sam smiled sometimes in his sleep, and sometimes almost wept, as if cognizant of the events around him…or perhaps, Merry suggested, reliving distant memories. They both thought that Sam stirred noticeably on September 22, and fitfully on October 6; he seemed to smile fondly and a bit wistfully, Pippin reckoned, on March 11; on March 13, he seemed to sob like a child with a frightening dream. Each time, Merry and Pippin dared to hope he would wake, but each time they were disappointed. On March 25, the anniversary of the final destruction of the Ring, they were sure that Sam would wake up; but he only stirred, clutched the healed stump of his finger, and slept on.

At last Merry and Pippin left Minas Tirith – Minas Anor once again – and their loving vigil to return to the Shire. They found its troubles almost too late, but with Gandalf's help, they were able to straighten things out and set the Shire to rights…more or less. The ugly new buildings were knocked down and the old ones restored, but the new trees would take a long time, and even their great-grandchildren might see no more than spindly saplings where stately oaks once graced the friendly woods of the Shire.

King Aragorn Elessar sometimes visited the forever-occupied bed in the forgotten corner of the Houses of Healing. "The hands of a king are the hands of a healer," the old saw goes, but even the King was unable to wake the somewhat legendary Halfling who ever slept in that part of the infirmary that was simply never used. In place of the expression "When the King returns" for an event that will never come to pass – for the King had indeed returned – some in Minas Anor began to say, "When the Ring-bearer wakes." Aragorn sometimes wondered if he could do nothing because waking Samwise would not be healing him. It pained Aragorn to just sit beside his friend and watch him sleep, knowing he could hear nothing that was said to him, knowing that he dwelt now only in bittersweet dreams. So even the King stopped coming.

And so no one was present when, on the twenty-fifth of March, breath finally left the wasted form of the faithful hobbit who saved Middle-earth. His lips rested in a peaceful smile when he finally left his sleep between life and death for a deeper sleep, and thus the keeper of the Houses of Healing found him. Meriadoc, Peregrin, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli were informed, but they were not deeply shocked; Samwise had been duly mourned for two years as he slept, and his passing was more a comfort and a relief than a death. But all the remaining members of the Fellowship felt somewhat guilty that none of them had been there to witness their friend's departure…no one except Frodo.

"You've had a long rest, Sam," he said.

"So I have," Sam replied. "Strangely enough, though, Mr. Frodo, I don't feel much better." He paused. "I think I'm ready to go home. I've already packed, you see, like in Rivendell…"

Frodo laughed, but kindly. "Where is home now? The Shire?"

"No, I don't think so," Sam said, puzzled. "I don't know where home is. _Where the heart is,_ the Gaffer always says; or _where they feed you._ But I don't think that the Shire will ever really feel like home again to me."

"Nor for me, had I the choice."

"So where is home now?"

"West, I believe; always is West the destination of the Sun, and so it is for us. Farther west than the Shire. Perhaps it is Elvenhome that we seek – perhaps that is the place where the homeless soul finds shelter at the end."

"And that is most especially what home is, Mr. Frodo – where a body finds rest at the end of the Road."

__

Still round some corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate,

And though I oft have passed them by

A day will come at last when I

Shall take the hidden paths that run

West of the Moon, East of the Sun.


	2. A Time to Mourn

****

Author's Note: No, "'Samwise Gamgee and the Ring'" didn't really need a Chapter 2/Part 2/sequel-posted-as-part-of-the-original-just-because. I just had a strange idea because when I wrote this, "yesterday" was March 25, the day the Ring was destroyed, and I wrote a follow-up sort of in honor of that. This describes the ceremony, which I mention in Part 1, honoring the Ring-bearer, in more detail; it's the thoughts of various people on Frodo's death and funeral-type-thing. And no, I didn't mean to be all-inclusive, which is why there are few parts – I didn't _forget_ people. Not everyone has something I needed to say.

****

A Time to Mourn

It was difficult for Galadriel, on September 22 of the year 3019 of the Third Age, that as the Lady of Light she could not weep. The Queen of Lothlórien was not to display human fits of emotion; she was kind and gentle and sad, but tears were too personal for Galadriel to shed. Her voice ached as she sang, betraying how much her sorrow truly hurt her, but did not crack with emotion, for the Lady of the Wood's inhumanly perfect, ethereal voice could not have the flaws of other races.

She sang her mournful Elvish lament:

__

Frodo of the Shire, bravest of Hobbits,

Most courageous of Men and Elves,

How far you wandered from your home

Pursuing fulfillment of a task too daunting,

A burden too heavy, a road too perilous

For any but you, who alone could stand and take it.

A candle you were in the darkest hour of night,

Extinguished by shadow when struggling to light the way.

Never too small to counterbalance the pending darkness,

Though barely four feet high, for it is not size

But the weight of courage that must be measured

Against the magnitude of the duty and burden.

Frodo, Frodo, a candle that burns yet

In the memory of its small, flickering but beautiful light,

In the Sun, the Moon, the Stars that shine still

Because that candle's flame did not waver 'til the last.

The last note cried its pain to the stillness of the courtyard around the White Tree. Galadriel, before lowering her eyes at the end of her lament, noticed that tears were flowing freely down the faces of most of the thousands of black-clad people in attendance to pay their respects to the Halfling who had saved their lives, homes, and world. She especially noted the tears of those who knew Frodo as well as understanding the Elven tongues – Legolas, Gildor, Glorfindel, Aragorn, Arwen, even Elrond. Most Elves mourned in white, as they often dressed, for purity and peace.

Mithrandir would save his grief until after the ceremonies, for the officiator could show nothing more than solemnity. But when alone, Galadriel knew, 'in the North Gandalf,' friend of the Hobbits, would mourn for the Ring-bearer like no other – Gandalf was anything but emotionless.

Galadriel bowed her head, so that no one would see that when she closed her eyes, she blinked back tears. She gazed down at the tiny grave at her feet that held only a grayish cloak with a leaf-shaped brooch clasp, a chain mail shirt of shining silver-white _mithril,_ and a small sword of Elven make whose runic inscriptions flowed down the blade like a winding stream. The Lady knelt beside the grave and added to its contents an intricate glass phial that held nothing but pure light, the light of Eärendil, the Galadrim's most beloved star. Rising, she touched her hand to her bowed forehead, as Aragorn had to her when the Fellowship came to Lothlórien, in a sign of reverence. So softly that none could hear, she whispered to the spirit that slumbered in the earth, "May it be a light to you in dark places when all other lights go out."

_Be at peace, Frodo, no longer Ring-bearer,_ Galadriel sent in her thoughts to the air. _Your task is done, and now you may find rest._

"Namárië," she murmured, remembering when the Fellowship had left Lórien; she had foreseen without the aid of her mirror that the Ring-bearer's path would only become more difficult from there.

His soul would only fly free from here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Merry felt that he could not bear to stay longer. Galadriel's song was heartrendingly beautiful, but he did not understand the words she spoke in Elvish. Quenya or Sindarin…Merry couldn't tell. Frodo might have been able to decipher more of Galadriel's words than his younger cousins' grand total of zero, but his own lament wouldn't have made a great deal of sense to him, either. It didn't seem right to pay the kind, humorous, friendly hobbit that Merry had once known the same solemn sort of tribute that a cold, distant warrior would receive.

Tears in his eyes, Merry looked up at the sky, clouded and pale, bleak gray to fit the occasion. It was Frodo's birthday, which was why the day had been chosen for the ceremony honoring the fallen Ring-bearer. He would have been fifty-one years old. It was far too young for any hobbit to take his last look at the Sun – though, Merry supposed, Frodo wouldn't have been able to see the Sun from where he was, in the ash-blackened land of Mordor, which itself meant "Land of Shadow," "Land of Darkness." He died without light, without hope, without the peace that should attend departure from this world. _And I wasn't there,_ Merry thought miserably. _I never said goodbye – I didn't even have the chance when he and Sam left the Fellowship. He won't hear me now._

As Galadriel sang, Merry wished he could fall to his knees beside the too-small grave and cry until his heart was torn from his mortal body. Instead, he just glanced at Pippin standing next to him, and watched tears make their way down the younger hobbit's cheeks. Pippin noticed that Merry was looking at him, his eyes terribly sad, and put his head on his cousin's shoulder. Merry wrapped his arm supportively around Pippin, trying in vain to cover his own misery by comforting another. He had a sudden memory of the blinding light of the pale white sky outside the grim blackness of Moria; Pippin was curled up on the rocky ground, sobbing his grief for Gandalf disconsolately, and he, Merry, was rubbing his back sympathetically but weeping himself, hardly more composed than the prostrate Pippin. He felt much the same today.

And, as it had been after the events of Khazad-dûm, Pippin was wracked with guilt as well as sorrow. _If Gandalf had been there when Frodo had to make the choice to go into Mordor alone, abandoning the Fellowship at Amon Hen, perhaps a group might have been assembled to accompany the Ring-bearer…perhaps he might have been saved from his bleak fate… But Gandalf had not been there because of Peregrin Took's folly. My folly, _Pippin thought. He let his tears soak into his cousin's shoulder; Merry's arm tightened its warm, meagerly comforting grip around Pippin's back. Utterly consumed by his misery, Pippin was surprised when a tremor shook the supportive pillar that was Merry – the tremor of a sob. Somewhere far off, Gandalf was speaking in what seemed an unfamiliar tongue about the valor of the smallest of possible heroes; Pippin comprehended every hollow word as it came, but each lost meaning as it fell, breaking like waves on the shore of eternity. Such dry, long-winded speeches said nothing about Frodo. Pippin put his arm around Merry, wishing, for once, to be giving someone else solace in grief.

Merry didn't know what the Elvish word meant; but he had heard Aragorn and the Lady use it before. Perhaps it meant 'find happiness,' or 'find comfort,' 'find hope,' or 'find peace'; perhaps it meant 'may there be light for you' or 'may you be a light.' Perhaps it meant 'I love you.' Whichever of these was contained in the Quenya word – maybe a bit of each – Merry felt it fitting to imitate Galadriel and murmur: _"Namárië."_

~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Mithrandir finished speaking and, like Galadriel, reverently bowed his head and touched his forehead, Faramir echoed the gesture. Éowyn beside him did the same, glancing searchingly at her husband. He stood gravely at respectful attention, his eyes fixed on the cloak, mail, and sword that lay in the ground, glinting from certain angles in the muted daylight that shone through a veil of cloud. He seemed deep in thought. Tears did not make their way down his face, nor sobs tremble in him, as it was with many of the people in attendance – notably, the members of the Fellowship of the Ring. Faramir's eyes were sorrowful, though. Éowyn speculated that he might be feeling renewed grief for Boromir, seeing that the Quest of the Ring had taken another brave life. But she spoke nothing of these thoughts. She said only:

"I never knew him."

"I met him near Henneth Annûn. He and his companion walked knowingly into death," Faramir murmured in reply. "Their backs may have been bent with weariness and toil; their eyes may have been haunted with sorrow, hunger, and fear. But their hearts did not fail, even when doom was nigh. He knew he would perish on this mission, and pressed on."

Éowyn was silent. She thought of Merry, who would not be left behind, and who very nearly sacrificed his own life to save hers. _If all Hobbits are thus, then it must be a noble race indeed._

"Then I loved him," she answered softly.

~~~~~~~~~~

March 25, 3020 was a feast day in Gondor for the destruction of the One Ring and the victory of the forces of good in the War of the Ring. But, understandably, Merry and Pippin were not in attendance at the festivities; they could not celebrate when neither Frodo nor Sam was there to rejoice in the victory that their lives had bought. They instead sat at Sam's bedside, praying that he might wake to see the world saved for renewal because he had carried on his fallen master's duty and destroyed the Ring of Power.

Aragorn, because he was King, feigned joy and presided over the celebration in Minas Anor of the Feast of the Ring. But he left midway through the meal, and was gone for an hour, during which time Arwen sat and waited for him, a smiling and gracious hostess. She had a feeling that she knew where he had gone. When he returned, she too departed to pay her respects to the little monument in the courtyard beside the White Tree of the City. Approaching, Arwen noticed a white flower atop the headstone that marked the cenotaph. No doubt Aragorn had placed it there. Once more, she briefly read the inscription carved on the stone: "Frodo Baggins of the Shire, Ring-bearer: He took the Ring to Mordor, though he did not know the way; he found courage, though small and beset by fear; he fell in a lonely battle and became a hero. Third Age 2968 – 3019."

Arwen looked more closely at the solitary white blossom on the headstone, trying to identify it. It was _athelas. _Involuntary tears stung the Queen's eyes.

"Can you heal, now, Frodo of the Shire?" she asked of the empty air, kneeling on the cold ground, only just beginning to thaw with the recent arrival of spring. "Has the scar on your shoulder faded, wherever you lie? Will you ever know healing? Will you ever find peace?"

King Elessar returned to Frodo's empty grave every Feast Day of the Ring on March 25 and every Fast Day of the Ring-bearer on September 22, and every time he came he left an _athelas_ flower. When Samwise, ever sleeping, finally left his state of limbo on the second Feast of the Ring, he was interred beside the cenotaph of his beloved master. It was clearly meant to be that they should go to Mordor together, and at last rest together. Maybe that, and not the _athelas _that could heal only the body but not the spirit, would allow the lonely soul of the Ring-bearer, who never found true rest in life while journeying to complete his task, to heal and be at peace at the end of the road.

__

When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last;

When broken is the barren bough, and light and labor past;

I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:

Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!

Together we will take the road that leads into the West,

And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.

****

Author's Note: Well, it seems to work and get people intrigued, so I'll say it: if you liked this story because angst is ever so much fun, I suggest that you read some of my other hobbit-angsty works of _Lord of the Rings _fanfiction, including "Remember Me," "Drowning Alone," and "Pity." Or, if you like Merry and Pippin, you may consider "Pippin's Song" or "Meant to Be." Or, if you want me to shut up and stop prostituting my writing, I'll do that right now.


End file.
